Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-07-22
AN EXAMPLE OF SENSATIONAL JOUR.
NALISM.

The mercllessness, cruel selfshness and
meanness of Sensational journalism, which
makes no distinctions as to what it pub
fishes and has no concern as to what it
says, 50 long as it panders to depraved
taste, has just been strikingly illustrated
by the making public of the fact that the
Chinaman who murdered Mrs. Billion CON
fessed to his attorney and to another that
the iniamy he attached to his victim was
fabrication When the murderer first told
the story certain journals fastened to pub
lish it, utterly insensible to the demands of
ordinary fairness, and regardless of the
fact that the victim of the assassin was in
her grave and beyond the power of shield
ing her name and that of her family from
the vicious assault
Had the story stood alone it would not
have been quite so pitiless and outrageous:
but it was 50 recited in some of the press
and so underlaid by innuendoes and ouips
and ifs and ands" and doubts and sus-
picions and expressions of double and sim
lister meaning, that not few people were
led TO entertain the suspicion that there
was some truth in the infamous charge.
PROFESSIONALLY ii was this moral murder.
as the Bulletin has most fifty termed it.
that most deeply stirred the peo-
pie and more than anything else
kept the blood at fever heat
and resulted in the overriding of the law
the trampling down of the legal safeguards
OF human life and the demoralizing and
shameful exhibition of lynch law and mob
execution. In one sense, therefore. these
sensational journals are responsible for the
dlsgracetul occurrences at Colusa. 1t was
the right Of society that its homes should
be protected from the wholly unsupported
and villainous ISLANDERS of a murderer look
ing for any means, however desperate to
effect his escape from Justice. What every
chattering Chin aman in peril of death by
the gallows may choose to say against the
household that trusts him, and which he
seeks to blot out" is not, therefore. en-
titled to be heralded abroad unsupported.
Had the lady Hong Di slew been the
wife of any one of the publishers who rushed
the scandal into print, and larded it with
suspicious and infereDces tending to sharpen
the venomous barb, no one believes that
the same publicity would have been gwen
to IT, or that the husband would have as
patiently and peaceably borne the
ignominy and the subsequent out
rageous searching of his domestic
affairs by Paul Pry reporters and gossip
mongers, as did farmer Billion. 1t now
turns out upon the same testimony that ORR
ginated the blasting scandal, that the libel
was the connection of desperate muir
derer, that there was not one word of truth
IN 1t, and that the household over which
his blistering venom was spewed has been.
without cause, made the subject of debate
that never should have been heard.
1t Will not probably teach vulgar and
sensational journalism lesson. or check
the vicious disposition to print anything
and everything lying cut-throats may see
ut to project from the safety of Il prison.
cell against the fair fame of women. Not
until society reads that kind of journalism
the only lesson it can appreciate-exclu-
sion-will it take heed. When men who
respect the sanetity of the home, and hold
the reputation Of wives and daughters
something too dear to be recklessly assailed
under the pretense of enterprise, because
some debased wretch utters it unsupported
refuse that order of journalism entry to
their homes, it viii possibly conform to
the proprieties and decencies Of better
civilization. Until then, as DR.. Holland
once wrote, ''we shall probably continue to
have professional scavengers who follow in
the wake of crime and scandal to CLEAN and
gorge its uneleanness."